11.29.2009

Last day in Florida. I'm having mixed feelings, and I fracking hate mixed feelings. I miss Atlanta. I miss my starbucks, and my writing time.
But I hate to leave West Palm. I hate to leave my mom and sister, and not see them again for a few more months. To see my kids play with the only gramma' or abuelita, they've really known and been able to play with.
That sucks, and it almost makes me want to move here, if I didn't miss Atlanta so much.

11.23.2009

That's right.. that's right, lets dance, lets... ah, crap. I don't know that song. I have no clue how the lyrics, or even the beat goes. I heard my son singing it once, and that lead into a 30 minute session of "WTH?"
Anyway, take out your red pens kiddies, here is your chance to take as many cheap shots at me as you'd like. I'm posting my query letter for you all to criticize the bejesus out of it. So go ahead, please, lemme have it!

Dear Stellar Agent of superb and unquestionable taste:
My name is J.m. Diaz and I am seeking representation for my first novel entitled “Mend”.

GOT ANOTHER FOR YOU.

It was just a simple text message that marked the beginning of the end to Jacob Santos’ life. Like a cockroach running from the light, his legs sprung into action before his brain knew where they were talking him: Toward the worst serial killer Atlanta had seen in recent history.

Entire families are being slaughtered by a murderer that leaves little to no evidence behind, and he has chosen one person to be his captor. Jacob Santos. A man with an inexplicable compulsion to decipher the killer’s messages. While feeling responsible for the lives the killer has and will take, Jacob finds his obsession further fueled by the macabre inscriptions left for him at each of the crime scenes. The handwriting that inked the bloody messages echo from Jacob’s past, rustling memories of a boy he saw buried over fifteen years ago. Each step Jacob takes brings him closer to unveiling the secret that links him to the killer, and to the dark chasm that lies in its revelation.

Unbeknownst to Jacob, Lieutenant Nate Barker of Fulton County Criminal Investigations Division is assigned to the Atlanta slasher killings. With nothing but his analytical mind, a prescription drug addiction and a rookie partner, he too must find this killer, while attempting to keep the reins on his disintegrating marriage. Walking a tight rope between duty and family, Lieutenant Barker has a gnawing feeling that the killings go deeper than just ritualistic serial murder. After four families have been slaughtered inside of six weeks, Detective Barker is racing against time to find this killer, before his or another family is lost, along with his last shred of purpose, his faith or his life.

Mend is a 70,000 word, completed novel.

Thank you for your time and all that Jazz. Please let me know where you think I can improve this.

11.19.2009

I’m not a show basher. Unless Steven Segal is in it, then it’s all fair game, but that’s a different post. No really, look it up. I’m talking about the rehashing of 80’s classic shows, the TV entertainment that helped raise me. Well, maybe I exaggerate. Television did not help raise me. It totally raised me, on its own. Much like a single mother on the run from its powerful and abusive ex-husband, cinema.

That said, I confess I am watching the new ABC show “V” through nostalgia goggles. They are like beer goggles, only filled with salty liquid, I think you gal’s call ‘em tears. (Please forward all hate correspondence to my email). Anyway, so yeah… V, right? It’s not bad. It has offered me 180 minutes of entertainment, but you are not here to read me rambling about how I like the show. I know you want to hear my bitching, so let’s dive right into that.

Bailey? I mean, really? Actour extraordinaire Scott Wolf portrays the daring and dashing Chad Decker. A reporter that apparently gets in “the know” early on with the V’s, sacrificing a slice of his soul for a few exclusives. Now, as realistic as that last bit may be (no sarcasm here) I’m having a hard time with the actor whose previous credits include the edgy “Party of Five” show, which lasted about 4 season’s too many. Any show that spat at us Jennifer Love-Hewitt, Neve Campbell and the other little whiny bitch that played the little sister, must be a creation of Satan himself. Mathew Fox gets a free pass for being in Lost and Speed Racer, but I digress. Marc Singer was Bailey’s predecessor in the original series. Marc the-beastmaster- Singer. The man wrestled tigers, and carried ferrets uncomfortable close to his crotch, while trotting around in a loin cloth.
I shit you not.
For his role on V, Singer graced us with white sneakers, jeans so tight they had to be a risk to his testicular health, a bomber jacket and a shirt (or several) that had evidently lost - at least - the five topmost buttons. How can ABC expect to have Bailey fit in those shoes? At least they had sense of not trying to have him fit in those pants. Nobody could. Really, I tried. I’m a uniballer now.

Moving on. Anna: The new leader of the V’s. I don’t know and don’t care about the actress playing her. Here’s all I care about it: The slope of her eyebrows is a snow skier’s wet dream. She is the most corporate, generic person I have ever seen and I cannot stop from comparing her to the womannequins in the opening credits of Nip\Tuck. However, I think she has a secret, and no, it’s not that the V’s are really a reptilian race that have come to earth to steal our water and turn humanity into their own personal Golden Corral. Well, maybe, but that’s not all. She’s got a stache. A well plucked, waxed, and shaved mustache. But you can see the green of it growing when the light hits just right. And with those phantom whiskers, she is supposed to be the new Diana, so deliciously played by Jane Badler in the original series. Wow. Anybody who saw V, in real time, had the same thing to say: “Diana is hot! I don’t care if she is lizard.” Hotness that transcends species: We should all strive for that. She was hot, in an evil stepmother, leather-bound dominatrix, with crunchy hair, kind of way. You should really check them out. Both the old and the new series, for a few laughs, if for no other reason.
That’s it. I’m done. Let me know if you agree, disagree, or have no idea what in the world I am talking about.

11.15.2009

I love my brother. I don’t blog about him enough, but I should. Really. I have mentioned him before in passing, but he definitely deserves his own post. He deserves a multitude of his own posts. The man is a character.

He is my younger brother, six and a half years my junior. Growing up as children, the gap was too big for us to really share, except for the games boys play at home when nobody is looking. Hide and go seek in a twelve by thirteen bedroom, fort building from sheets and pillows and the infallible Millennium Falcon. Things like that.

However, it was not until he hit his teens that we really started seeing eye to eye. It was during these crucial years that our father passed away, sending the boy into a spiral that scared the shit out of me. He had some rough patches, traveled some seedy roads, until it all came to an abrupt stop. Our entire family spun out of control during this time before the gravity of genetics reeled us back into stable orbits. In that time, my brother went from being that troublesome teen and metamorphed into an outstanding man. He is a person with enough personality and character to fill a novel. A whole series.

Just last night, as my wife and I were strolling the streets of a Cabbage Town (will blog about this place later), I suddenly burst into laughter.

“What?” she asked.
“Nothing, just remembering,”
“Must been funny,”
“Remember when brother was over at the house, talking about that girl?”
“The short one, that nobody knew was short?”
“Yeah, that one.”
“What about her?”
“Well, I just remembered him saying that she wore those giant heels, that she couldn’t even walk in, and she looked like…”
At this point, brother put down his beer, and stood up, curling his hands into his chest to make them smaller. He then inclined his body forward and took one exaggerated step in front of the other, before he turned to us and said [about the girl] “She fuckin’ walks like a T-Rex, in those shoes.”

Tell me, how could you not laugh your ass off at that. He is plagued with things like that, which enliven any situation.

I also have a sister, thirteen years my junior. But that is another post all together. She is a wonderful girl, with whom I share an uncanny understanding. It’s almost a psychic connection, if I was to go all cheesy on you all, which I am not. I love my brother and sister. I draw inspiration from them both, which only makes me sad when I see or hear about siblings that don’t even speak with one another.

11.10.2009

11.04.2009

Dow Jones, Gold and Silver indexes and Oil prices have nothing on time. Time, that little tick-tock, is the most precious commodity there is. It is its scarceness that inflates its value and it’s become obvious to me that its availability decreases as we age.

Similarly to my peers and colleagues, I more often than not find myself wishing for that trophy day we call “Friday”. We wish for Monday to kiss our collectives asses, and Tuesday through Thursday to hurry on by without any more presence than a deaf\mute in a concert. But Friday, ah Friday arrives, decked in white suite and a walking cane, spreading it’s coolness on us, reminding us why we live.

Friday should be called Soulday.

The time when the collective human spirit is revitalized and once again we revel in our livelihood, wanting to squeeze every drop out life. If life gives us lemons, then on Friday is when we make lemonade.

Sad. We are wishing away our life for the sake of one day, and the promise of a two- day break. I know that for most of us, Monday through Thursday are just other crap routine days, but crap or not, it is our routine. Our days. The kind that will never come again. What happens if we die today, or tomorrow and never make it to Friday? Will we feel cheated because we missed out on your Soulday? Enjoy each day, all of them, even the crap ones; they are the last of their kind.

This thoughtful moment brought to you by espresso-in-my-veins.
Now, go forth and reproduce, or jerk off… whatever.

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About Me

It's not that I'm mean. It's just that I sometimes say things others only think, yet are afraid to voice themselves. Oh, and I'm not very good at talking about myself. That's why I make up people, and then place them in situations, and throw in a guy with a gun.
I'm a writer, attempting to peel away from the world of Systems Engineering. Not that Information Technology is bad, its just that I don't love it. Not like I love storytelling. Pays the bills though.